CHEMICAL WEAPONS (PROHIBITION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs (Prof. S. Jayakumar): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Sir, Singapore is a party to the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction, or CWC for short. We need to enact this law to implement our obligations under that Convention. The Convention banned a whole category of weapons of mass destruction and established a comprehensive verification scheme to ensure that member countries comply with their obligations under the Convention. The CWC is the result of 20 years of negotiations in the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. To date, it has been ratified by 129 countries, including the United States, China, Indonesia and Russia. Singapore signed the Convention in 1997.

Sir, I need not spell out for Members the horrifying effects chemical weapons can have on human life. To make matters worse, chemical weapons are cheap and can be easily produced, requiring little by way of technical expertise and raw materials. Unlike nuclear weapons, they can easily be disseminated using commercially available equipment.

Chemical weapons have been used in a number of armed conflicts in the past causing death and injury to millions. The best known examples are during World War I, the Holocaust and the Iran-Iraq War. A few years ago, the Aum Shinrikyo cult released Sarin gas into a Tokyo underground, causing 5,000 casualties. It highlighted the fact that a country remains at risk from a chemical attack even during peacetime.

Singapore ratified the CWC in 1997. Besides the obvious security benefits in a world that is free of chemical weapons, there are also other advantages to ratification. The Convention established the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). As a member of that Organisation, we can obtain technical assistance from other member countries if threatened with an attack by chemical weapons. Ratification is also expected to facilitate trade in chemicals which are controlled by the Convention. The Convention progressively prohibits transfers of these chemicals to States that are not parties to the Convention. However, as a State Party, our chemical industries are able to freely import or export these chemicals to and from other State Parties for legitimate purposes.

Sir, Singapore does not produce or possess chemical weapons, nor do we have chemical weapons facilities or stocks to destroy, as required by the Convention. The verification measures required by the Convention have limited implications on parts of our chemical, pharmaceutical and other industries which I will elaborate shortly. The verification measures, which consist of periodic declarations of activities involving chemicals controlled by the Convention and inspections of facilities producing or using such chemicals, are necessary as a number of chemicals produced or used for normal commercial activities also have applications in the manufacture of chemical weapons. Therefore, these activities have to be constantly monitored to ensure that countries do not use their commercial chemical industry for the clandestine production of chemical weapons.

Let me now touch on the salient provisions of the Bill. Clause 8 makes it an offence to use, develop, produce, acquire, stockpile, retain or transfer a chemical weapon. Singapore is obliged under the Convention to prohibit the carrying out of these activities. As required by the Convention, this clause also applies to acts and omissions of our citizens overseas and persons on board ships and aircraft registered in Singapore. Penalties for committing the offence are severe to reflect its seriousness and the devastating effects of the use of chemical weapons on lives and property.

Clause 9 creates a licensing system for the use, development, production, acquisition, stockpiling, retention or transfer of scheduled chemicals for permitted purposes. Permitted purposes include protective, research, medical, pharmaceutical and law enforcement purposes. The licensing system is administered by the National Authority, an office created as part of the Trade Development Board. The system will facilitate the gathering of information from chemical facilities to enable Singapore to make periodic declarations to the Organisation established under the Convention. For the same reason, clause 12 requires those carrying out activities involving such chemicals to keep appropriate records and provide certain information to the Director of the National Authority, and clause 13 empowers the Director to require any person with information relevant to such declaration to furnish the information to the Director. Any information so provided is protected from disclosure under clause 26. This is to give our chemical industry the assurance that commercially sensitive information will always be kept confidential.

Part V of the Bill provides for two types of inspections of premises: national and international inspections. National inspections are carried out by the National Authority and police officers to determine if the Act and regulations have been complied with at the premises. International inspections are carried out by the international inspectors of the Organisation, OPCW, which can be of two types. They could either be routine or challenge inspections. Routine inspections are carried out at facilities using controlled chemicals to ensure that such use is consistent with legitimate purposes and with annual declarations made by a State Party. A challenge inspection is carried out when a State Party to the Convention requests the Organisation to conduct an inspection in any other State Party to the Convention. A request may be made if the requesting State Party has good reason to suspect that the other State Party has violated the Convention. However, to allay any concern over the intrusive nature of such an inspection, the Bill provides that an inspection may only be carried out with the consent of the person in control of the premises or with a court warrant. Other safeguards are set out in clause 24 of the Bill.

Sir, the Bill will have limited impact on the commercial operations of our companies in the chemical and other industries. In fact, since 1997, they have actually been making annual declarations to the National Authority voluntarily and have already factored the making of such declarations in their work schedules. From information obtained in 1999, less than 60 companies will require licences for activities involving chemicals controlled by the Convention. Of these, only eight will be subject to routine inspections by the international organsiations as set up under the Convention. Trial inspections here and elsewhere have shown that they cause only minimal disruptions to the operations of companies.

Sir, I beg to move.

Question proposed.

Mr Chiam See Tong: Sir, it is morally right for Singapore to sign the Chemical Weapons Convention on 14th January 1993 and ratifying the Convention on 21st October 1995.

Sir, my sincere hope is that Singapore shall never support any form of weapons of mass destruction in war and, in peacetime, to prevent their proliferation, manufacture, stockpiling and take a stand for their destruction. All forms of mass destruction, be it nuclear, biological or chemical are inhuman. When they are used, they destroy both combatants and non-combatants. In a war, when conventional weapons are used, it is the civilian population that really suffers and when weapons of mass destruction are used, the civilian population suffers even more.

Sir, I visited Hiroshima in 1998 and I visited the museum which told the story of the dropping of the atomic bomb on that city. All inhabitants of that city within range of the bomb died. The atomic bomb, which is a weapon of mass destruction, killed every one in its path. It did not discriminate whether a person is a soldier, a woman or a child. It just simply wiped out every one. In the case of Hiroshima, the inhabitants on 6th August 1945 suffered a terrible death. The inhabitants were seared by heat of 4000 degrees Celsius. Then there were strong winds of intense heat followed by acid rain. Finally, those who were still alive suffered radiation which destroyed their immune system. Many later died of leukemia and related diseases.

The mass destruction done by chemical weapons is equally bad. The difference between chemical weapons and nuclear weapons is that the former destroy only living things. They do not destroy physical properties, such as houses and other buildings. However, like all weapons of mass destruction, they still do not discriminate between soldiers who are the actual combatants and the civilian population. When they are used, they kill every one. Some chemical weapons are designed to kill plants such as the agent orange chemical that was used in Vietnam to destroy vast areas of foliage instantly. The main use of the chemical agent orange was deployed mainly to kill plants and trees but it was also harmful to human beings who came in contact with it. Those who came in contact with that chemical later suffered from sickness and disabilities.

Sir, it is right that we should have this law to prohibit chemical weapons in Singapore and give effect to Singapore's obligation under the Convention.

I support the Bill.

Prof. Jayakumar: Sir, I have listened to Mr Chiam and I thank him for his support. I think Members would share his views and comments on weapons of mass destruction, and I should add to what I said in my speech that Singapore has in fact signed all the key treaties and international conventions involving weapons of mass destruction. In addition to the convention, which is the subject of the Bill today, we have also ratified the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention as well as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). We have also signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) last year and we are now in the process of examining the ratification in due course.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

The House immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. - [Prof. S. Jayakumar].

Bill considered in Committee; reported without amendment; read a Third time and passed.